The PLACE of PRAYER 
IN GOD'S PLAN OF 


“WORLD CONQUEST 


INTERCHURCH WORLD MOVEMENT 
OF NORTH AMERICA 
111 FIFTH AVENUE NEW YORK CITY 





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The 
PLACE of PRAYER in GOD’S 
PLAN of WORLD CONQUEST 


By 
JAMES M. CAMPBELL 


Being one of a series of devotional 
pamphlets designed to cultivate the 
spiritual resources of the church. 


Price, 10 cents each, 75 cents 
per dozen, $6.00 per hundred 


ieee URC: OWORLD MOVEMENT 
OP SNOR DrwAMERIC A: 
Tl FIFTH AVENUE INE Weer ORK CUR 


PREFA TORY 


What Prayer Means to God 


HAT prayer occupies a place of primacy in God’s plan 

of world conquest is one of the most clearly revealed 

truths of the New Testament. There are many things 
which are helpful to the winning of the world to God. 
Prayer is indispensable. Without it everything else will fail. 
We may dispense with learning, with money and with organi- 
zation, but we cannot dispense with prayer. Outward things 
when truly consecrated and rightly used will multiply the 
power of the church, but let her depend upon these for success 
and her power becomes her weakness. 


In the great work of subjugating the world to himself, to 
which task God is calling the church with peculiar urgency 
today, there are things which he is seeking to accomplish by 
prayer that can be brought to pass in no other way. Hence, 
whatever service we may render him in other directions, if we 
restrain prayer before him, we are keeping back an essential 
condition of success and hindering him from working out the 
purposes of his beneficent will. 


It will help us to realize this if we consider what prayer means 
to God, what he sees in it, and what he is seeking to accomplish 
by it. Generally the meaning of prayer has been considered 
from the human standpoint. We have concerned ourselves 
to know what it means to us. We have asked, ““What profit to 
ourselves is there in prayer?”’ Would it not be well to consider 
prayer from the divine side also and ask, “What shall it profit 
70d that we pray unto him? Why is he so anxious to find an 
interest in our prayers? Of what value to him are our 
prayers?” Only as we get God’s point of view regarding 
prayer, can we appreciate its true worth, and in our own 
prayer life reach the highest place of privilege and power. 


2 


I. Prayer as a Way in Which God 


Expresses Himself 


V \ HEN we truly pray, it is not so much we who pray as 
it is God who prays through us. The good thoughts and de- 
Sires that spring up within us are as much an evidence of his 
brooding presence as the flowers that deck the earth are evi- 
dences of the touch of the summer sun. Holy men in every 
age have prayed as they were borne along by the Holy Spirit. 
What God has inbreathed into them as desire has been out- 
breathed by them as petition. From him comes the impulse 
to pray, and hence the restraining of prayer is nothing less 
than the resisting of the operation of the Spirit of God upon 
the heart. 


THE IMPULSE AND’ And what shall we say of the call 
POWER TO PRAY to prayer which today is heard on 
every hand? Is it not the living 
voice of the Spirit of God as he is now speaking to the 
churches? In whatever form it may come, from whatever 
quarter it may emanate, through whatever agency it may be 
mediated, it is as really his voice as if spoken audibly out of 
the open heavens. And woe to the church if, deaf to the 
Spirit’s voice, blind to the opportunity of the hour, and 
recreant to the duty that brooks no delay, she fails to make 
adequate response to what is deepest in God’s desire regarding 
her! 


Besides giving the impulse to pray, God gives the power to 
pray. We pray not only as he moves us; we pray as he em- 
powers us. He is our underlying support in all our efforts to 
pray. This truth is clearly expressed in the words, “The Spirit 
also helpeth our infirmity, for we know not how to pray as we 
ought; but the Spirit himself maketh intercession for us with 
groanings which cannot be uttered; and he that searcheth the 
hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he 
maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of 
God.” Rom. 8:26, 27. 


THE PLACE OF PRAYER IN 


The substance of this declaration is that God by his Spirit 
assists us in our halting, stumbling attempts to pray; that he 
puts himself into us so as to strengthen us at our weakest 
points; that he interprets his mind to us so that we can pray 
intelligently; that he voices our unspoken desires that struggle 
to the birth; and that he guides us to pray in accordance with 
his will. That we, as pupils in the school of Christ, have a divine 
Helper and Tutor, who is ever with us to teach us “how to pray 
as we ought,” is one of the blessed truths which belong to the 
fullness of the Christian dispensation. 


PRESENT-DAY CALL TO God seeks not only to express him- 
COLLECTIVE PRAYER Self through personal prayer, but 

he also seeks to express himself 
through collective prayer, especially through the prayer of the 
family, the church and the nation. A prayerless family, a 
prayerless church, or a prayerless nation is not true to the 
divine stirrings within it. It is not speaking for God as it 
ought, but is withholding the direct acknowledgement of its 
dependence upon his power, and the direct testimony to his 
fatherly love and care for which he is longing. 


It is, however, a cause for profound gratitude that in the 
present hour of world crisis God is finding expression in this 
larger way as never before. In desolated homes family altars 
are being raised. The weight of the world’s woes and the sense 
of its own inadequacy to heal them is pressing many a church 
upon its knees. The collapse of our modern civilization, with 
its crass materialism, thinly veneered with religious formalism, 
has thrown the nations of the world back upon God. All are 
seeking his help, from the conviction that they have nowhere 
else to go. In this way God is finding his own. He is getting 
back something of what he has given. The seed which he 
has sown, and for whose fruitage he has been patiently wait- 
ing, is at length coming to the harvesting. 


THE ASSURANCE OF Touching the prayer which God 
ANSWERED PRAYERS incites and indites, it can be confi- 
dently affirmed that it is prayer 
which he is bound to answer. For he cannot deny himself. 
Only let us be sure that our prayer is from him; that it is not 
the selfish cry of human weakness and need; but that it is 
at bottom a cry from God himself—the echo of his inward 
whisperings—and all doubt as to its acceptance and realiza- 
tion will be banished forever. 


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GOD’S PLAN OF WORLD CONQUEST 


The absolute certainty of the answer to prayer on this ground 
is to be assumed; for Spirit-born prayer will have this mark; 
it will be in harmony with the will of God; and ‘“‘this is the 
boldness tnat we have toward him that if we ask anything 
according to his will he heareth us” (I John 5:14). This kind 
of prayer implies, as Dr. Hastings has said, ‘‘The annihilation 
of all that in the human will is selfish, and the desire and 
effort of the soul to relate itself and all its interests to God 
and his will,” and that not merely in the sense of acquiescing 
in his will, but also in the sense of accepting it and energeti- 
cally working it out. 


Protracted seasons of prayer are often required, not to wring 
reluctant blessings from God’s hand, but to bring us into 
oneness with his will. When that is attained we can rest and 
wait, being well assured that the prayer that has settled down 
in his will is already answered. 


ACCEPTABLE PRAYER IS Prayer that is inwrought by the 
GOD-LIKE IN SPIRIT Spirit of God reflects the character 
of God. It is free from all envy and 
hate; it breathes the spirit of forgiveness. Those who pray “in 
the Holy Spirit,” pray in a holy spirit; they are filled with the 
love of compassion toward their enemies, and pray for them 
as Christ prayed for his murderers upon the cross. Had Christ 
prayed, “Father, destroy them,” instead of “Father, forgive 
them,” the scepter of moral supremacy would have fallen from 
his hands. And it will fall from the hands of his representa- 
tives unless they follow his example. 


SWEEP AND SCOPE OF It embraces in its interests and 
ACCEPTABLE PRAYER’ aims the whole of humankind. It 
is free from all race prejudice and 
religious exclusiveness; it is utterly blind to all of earth’s poor 
distinctions of rank and riches. It is born of love, and looks 
at humanity through God’s eyes and feels toward them 
through God’s heart. This is in a special sense a quality of 
Christian prayer, and differentiates it from all other prayer. 


A true Christian is wholly altruistic in his praying. He prays, 
of course, for himself, but he does not allow his prayer to pass 
over from self-interest, which is right, to selfishness, which is 
wrong. He no more prays for himself alone than he lives for 
himself alone. He prays not for his own things only, but also 
for the things of others. He identifies himself with others, 
carries them on his heart before the throne, speaks for them 


5 


THE PLACE OF PRAYER IN 


when they are dumb, and pleads their cause as an advocate 
with the Father, pleading the cause of his brethren. 


It is this quality of divine unselfishness that gives to inter- 
cessory prayer its peculiar value. It lifts a man above himself 
into the universal. It makes him one with Christ, his great 
High Priest, in his sympathy with the whole of humanity. 
When the Jewish high priest went into the holy place to inter- 
cede for the people he bore the names of the twelve tribes 
engraven on his breastplate; so when the Christian, as priest, 
enters the holy place as an intercessor he is to have the in- 
terests of all men on his heart. He is to make intercession “for 
all men,” without distinction and without exception. There 
must be no narrowing of his sympathy so as to exclude any 
soul from his prayers. If he cannot pray for all men he cannot 
pray at all. The grudging of any soul the boon of heaven’s 
mercy will kill the spirit of prayer and render it null and void, 
and will be conclusive evidence that it is not of God, but is 
from some lower source. 


DECISIVE FACTOR The prayer of intercession is 

as “‘the decisive human factor in 

the struggle for righteousness and redemption,” and “the call 

to prayer as the call to use the great unused human resources 

of power.”” Dr. Arthur Smith speaks of it as ‘‘a deeply buried 

talent.” And so itis. In one of Israel’s darkest days Jehovah 

“wondered that there was no intercessor” (Isa. 59:16). He 

wondered that there was no one to cry to him on behalf of the 

people, no one ready to identify himself with their sins and 
confess them as if they were his own. 


How greatly must he wonder today that the intercessors are 
so few, even within the church, which is the body of Christ, 
the organization in which he finds expression, and through 
which he works. There is nothing that has in it so much of 
that vicarious spirit, which is the life-blood of the religion of 
the Crucified; nothing that brings us so close to him in his 
great passion; nothing that possesses such great power for 
spiritual conquest, as intercession. Magnifying its importance, 
Robert E. Speer closes his pamphlet, ‘‘Prayer and Missions,” 
with the stirring words: 


“Of far greater service than any array of learning or gifts of 
eloquence, more to be desired than gold and fine gold, more 
to be sought than a great name, or apparent opportunities for 


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GOD’S PLAN OF WORLD CONQUEST 


larger usefulness, of deeper significance than high intellectual 
attainment or power of popular influence, is this gift. May 
God give it to each one of us!—the secret and sweetness of 
unceasing, prevailing, triumphant prayer for the coming of 
the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ.” 


IMPERATIVE NEED IS’. Prayer for the progress of the king- 
MISSIONARY PRAYER dom is of the unselfish and univer- 
sal character of intercessory prayer. 
It is prayer at high-water mark. When a Christian prays 
“Thy kingdom come,” if his prayer means anything, it means 
that henceforth in his life everything is to be subordinated to 
its coming. He virtually says: “Whether my own particular 
enterprise goes up or down, let the kingdom of God prevail; 
whether my plans succeed or fail, let the reign of God flourish.” 
His prayer goes beyond all thought of self, puts God first, and 
becomes lost in him. In God it has its origin, in God it has 
its end. 


Nor is this kind of prayer something added to a normal 
Christian experience. It belongs to the very essence of it. 
Christianity is a missionary religion; the Bible is a missionary 
book; the church is a missionary organization, and every 
Christian is himself a missionary, not, of course, in an official 
sense, but in a sense equally real. Upon his heart lies the 
burden of the world’s redemption. For this nis prayers ascend, 
for this his works overflow. So distinctive is this mark and 
sign that any one professing the Christian name who finds 
himself indifferent to the spiritual welfare of the meanest soul 
for whom Christ died, has every reason to examine into the 
validity of his celestial title deeds. 


Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2021 with funding from 
Columbia University Libraries 


https://archive.org/details/placeofprayeringOOcamp 


II. Prayer as One of the Means by 
Which God Works 


Pp RAYER is one of the means which God employs, within 
the spiritual sphere, for carrying on the work of human re- 
demption; and so necessary is it to him that he cannot carry 
his work to a successful issue until he can induce men to pray. 


That prayer leads to active service on the part of him who 
prays, goes without the saying. The man who prays sincerely 
does more than pray. He transmutes his prayers into deeds. 
Prayer, like faith, when separate from works is dead, being 
alone. Sometimes a man converts his prayers into ballots, at 
other times into bullets, at all times into some form of practical 
social service. 


So certain is it that prayer will lead to works that it is danger- 
ous to pray for anything unless we are prepared to do what we 
can to answer our own prayer. When we pray that a certain 
thing be brought to pass, the Lord is sure to ask: ‘““What are 
you going to do about it?”? When unaccompanied by action, 
prayer is a mere excuse for laziness. 


PRAYER INVOLVES. But prayer is something more than 

the impulse to work; it is some- 

ASE a (serena thing more than the powder behind 

the ball that sends it singing to its mark; something more 

‘than the power which renders all other agencies effective; 

something more than preparation for work. It is work itself; 

a genuine part of our service to God and man; and itis a 

question if we ever do a finer work for God than when we pray 

for men, or do more to help on a good cause than when we 
pray for it. 


The Latin proverb, Laborare est orare, “‘To work is to pray,” 
is a one-sided sentiment. It is equally true that to pray is to 
work. Prayer is work of the highest kind. It is not merely a 
way of getting things from God, it is a way of doing things for 
God; it is not merely a way of securing things for others, it is 
a way of doing things for others; it is not merely communion, 


9 


THE PLACE OF PRAYER IN 


it is cooperation. In nothing do we unite forces more inti- 
mately with God, working together with him for human weal, 
than when we pray. And when our good works are at last 
summed up, nothing will count for more than our prayers. 


AN EVERY-DAY James, the brother of our Lord, 

PRACTICAL FORCE declares that “the supplication of 

a righteous man availeth much in 

its working” (James 5:16 R.V.). It is a practical force in the 

world’s life, working out beneficently in every direction and 

imparting to others help of every kind, in body and spirit. 

Once released and set in motion, it never ceases to operate. 

It is like the incense which is the prayer of saints long since 

dead, which keeps ascending forever from the golden censers 
swung before the throne of God. 


PRAYER BROADENS Prayer widens the scope of a man’s 

A MAN’S LIFE influence. The range of the activi- 

ties of an ordinary life are very 

narrow and contracted. The race that is set before most men 

is clearly defined, and lies within limits which can not easily be 

passed. Outside a certain prescribed circle, the average man 

can push his influence but a very little way. Prayer changes 

all that. It redeems life from littleness, and enables one whose 

environment is of the narrowest to make his influence felt 
Over a wide area. 


Just as “the streams that turn the machinery of the world 
rise in solitary places,” the streams which turn the machinery 
of our religious activities may rise in the garret of some un- 
known and solitary saint. By thus enlarging life, prayer 
supplies a form of usefulness which remains open when the 
other doors are shut; so that when, because of increasing 
years, or of physical infirmities, or of other providential causes, 
the outward life contracts, the spiritual life may enlarge, and 
the one who is most closely hemmed in by ever narrowing 
circumstances may keep in vital touch with the world around 
him, and connecting up with the great world-movements of 


his day, may have a part in every victory won for righteous- 
ness. 


RENDERING HELP Prayer is a form of social energy. 
THROUGH PRAYER Ithiséa working force in society. 
Among the various ways in which 

one person can render help to another there is none more 
effective than prayer. When we can do nothing else for a 
friend, we can pray for him; and when he has come to an end 


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GOD’S PLAN OF WORLD CONQUEST 


of his own resources he is likely to present the request, “Pray 
for me.” The fact that we instinctively pray for others, and 
that they ask us to pray for them when they are in trouble, 
implies that there exists a deep-rooted conviction that real 
and substantial benefits come to one man from the prayers 
of another. 


Writing to the Colossians of Epaphras, one of the least noted 
of his fellow-workers, Paul tells them that he was “striving 
for them in his prayers” (Col. 4:12). He brought them rein- 
forcement by wrestling for their souls with the powers of evil; 
he energized Godward on their behalf, drawing down blessing 
upon their heads and setting in motion influences which 
brought about results that could not be accounted for upon 
naturalistic grounds. 


The need for this reenforcement is keenly felt by missionaries 
at their lonely outposts on the far-flung battle-lines of the 
church. Without it they feel shorn of their power. Listen to 
Gilmour of Mongolia as he exclaims: ““Unprayed for I feel like 
a diver at the bottom of a river with no air to breathe; or like 
a fireman with an empty hose in a burning building.”’ And no 
church is doing its full duty to its chosen representatives on 
the mission field that lavishly provides for their sustenance 
and equipment, and does not support them in their arduous 
work by prayer. 


PRAYER AROUSES A Nothing enlarges the religious life 
UNIVERSAL INTEREST More, or projects its influence far- 
ther, than prayer for foreign mis- 
sions. It leads one to think internationally. “By it,” as Dr. 
John R. Mott has well said, “the most obscure person can 
exercise as much power for the evangelization of the world 
as those who stand in the most prominent places.” So subtle 
and far-reaching is the power that prayer possesses, that, as 
another has put it, “A man may go aside today, and shut 
his door, and truly spend half an hour in India for God.” There 
is no spot in all the wide world -aat prayer cannot reach, and 
in which it cannot work. 


When anyone prays for a certain missionary enterprise he 
makes a personal investment init. In all that it accomplishes 
for God he has a part. So that the mother who stays at honie 
and prays for her son who goes forth into one of the earth’s 
dark places to proclaim God’s evangel, is yoked with him in 
the fellowship of a common service. 


11 


THE PLACE OF PRAYER IN 


“He with the sword of battle, she at home 1n prayer, 
Both win a victory and both the glory share.” 


And we may be sure that in the day of final ingathering those 
who work on the inside in prayer, and those who work on the 
outside in preaching and teaching, shall rejoice together. 


VALUE OF A BETTER’ The nature of this great force 
KNOWLEDGE OF PRAYER Called prayer, which is as distinct 

as gravitation or electricity, we 
can at best but dimly understand. We know in part, and we 
teach in part. Whenever we come into contact with God 
and the soul, as we do in prayer, we touch profound mys- 
teries, whose depths our little sounding line of reason cannot 
reach. But the mysteries involved in prayer are in no wise 
greater than those involved in all the movements of life—of 
which it is one. 


And just as we seek to understand what may be known of the 
facts of life, that we may adjust ourselves to things as they 
are, and work in harmony with God’s world-plan, so must we 
endeavor to discover what we may of the fact of prayer that 
we may be able to cooperate with God more intelligently and 
efficiently in securing the ends which he is seeking to realize 
by it, as one of the agencies for the world’s betterment. And 
blameworthy we cannot fail to be if a better knowledge of the 
nature and meaning of prayer does not lead to better praying. 


PRAYER AS A “More things are wrought by 

REAL POWER prayer than this world dreams of,” 

but its results are often too fine 

to be tabulated. They do not always come with outward 

show; they do not always flaunt before the world’s eyes in 

statistics. Being largely spiritual, they are to be spiritually 
discerned. But they are real and abiding. 


RESPONSIBILITY FOR’ This highest form of service, which 

PRAYER SERVICE is possible for every one to render, 

is something which God expects; 

and here, as elsewhere, responsibility is commensurate with 

ability. At a temperance meeting a speaker prayed that God 

would send his lightning to shatter the saloons, when some 

one remarked, “God has plenty of lightning, what he needs is 

conductors.” And this is what he needs to shatter the strong- 

holds of sin. He needs praying souls to act as conductors of 
his power. 


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GOD’S PLAN OF WORLD CONQUEST 


It is God’s usual way of working to exercise his saving ministry 
to men through helpful personalities. He comes into contact 
with one soul through the medium of another. The leaven 
which he provides a human hand takes and hides in the meal; 
the seed of truth which he creates and supplies the husband- 
man casts into the bosom of the earth, and the power for the 
world’s salvation, which is in him and from him, the praying 
soul conveys to other souls. 


The man who prays is a man of power. He links up with the 
Infinite. He stands at the center of a circle of influence 
which reaches out in every direction. He mediates divine 
power. Being in direct communication with heaven, he be- 
comes the channel between earth’s emptiness and heaven’s 
fullness. He also radiates divine power, sending out wave 
currents of spiritual energy which may be felt to earth’s re- 
motest bounds. What he does in the way of helping God can 
never be measured. So great is the power of prayer that were 
all the Christian people to stop praying the main agency for 
the establishment of the kingdom of God in the world would 
instantly come to an end. 


To pray is to cooperate with God in the most vital and effective 
way that is open to us. Much as he needs all other forms of 
service that it may be possible for us to render, most of all he 
needs our prayers. And nothing that we give him will cost 
us more. As Gustav Warneck reminds us, “It is much more 
difficult to pray for missions than to give to them.” A gift of 
money may be a thing of the hand, prayer is a thing of the 
heart; it is a part of life itself, a coinage of the soul that passes 
current above. 


SPIRITUAL PRAYER As a form of spiritual activity, 
IS DIFFICULT prayer involves effort. Formal 
prayer may be easy, spiritual prayer is difficult. We have 
literally to “lift up’ our heads unto God. The times when the 
soul mounts up to God as on eagle’s wings are few and far 
between. To take hold of God we have to stir ourselves up 
and draw upon every particle of latent power. 


HOW TO SUSTAIN To sustain and quicken our in- 
EFFORT IN PRAYER terest in others so as to pray for 
them persistently we require to 

get acquainted with the facts of their lives. In like manner, 
to sustain interest in missions so as to make them the object of 
continuous prayer. we must study the missionary situation, 
giving attention to particular mission fields. Definite knowl- 


13 


THE PLACE OF PRAYER IN 


edge of the facts will not only increase our prayer output, but 
will supply the basis for definite praying. In “A Student in 
Arms,’ Donald Hankey naively remarks, concerning a certain 
narrow type of clergyman, that “it is»useless for him to spend 
more time in prayer until he has more to pray about.” 


A survey of the mission field will do that. It will give a Chris- 
tian man more to pray about; it will increase the number of 
his vital and worthwhile interests; and before he knows it the 
motto, “I ought to pray,” will be changed into “I love to pray.” 
As he muses upon what he has discovered touching the appal- 
ling conditions of the heathen world, the fire of a holy passion 
will burn within his breast, and he will be ready to put into 
the work something of the self-sacrifice displayed by our 
youth when they go to battle for a great ideal. 


THE INCREASE OF Like every other talent, prayer 
PRAYER POWER power is increased by use. The 
reward of praying much is the 
ability to pray more and better. This is true of prayer of every 
kind; its reflex influence is simply incalculable. But in a very 
peculiar degree increased effort in prayer on behalf of others 
brings an increase of blessing. ‘“‘He that watereth others, 
himself shall be watered.” 


The more altruistic prayer is in its spirit the more favorably 
does it react on the one who Offers it. It is for this reason that 
prayer for foreign missions yields such bountiful returns. 
By deepening its interest in foreign missions the home church 
always replenishes its own exchequer; for never does the 
principle fail, laid down in Prov. 11:24, (R.V.), “There is that 
scattereth and increaseth yet more; and there is that with- 
holdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth only to want.” 


It is frequently said that the demand of the hour is for better 
workers; equally true is it that the demand is for better pray- 
ers. Without improved prayer the work of God willlag. Unless 
we match our advanced methods of work with advanced 
methods of prayer, God will be disappointed in us, and the 
cause of the world’s redemption, upon which his heart is set, 
and for which he is working, will suffer. 


GOD DESIRES OUR With a longing which cannot be 
FELLOWSHIP measured, God desires our fellow- 
ship, our confidence, and our co- 

operation in prayer; and desiring them, he asks for them. Not 
only is he working within to bring forth the spirit of prayer in 


14 


GOD’S PLAN OF WORLD CONQUEST 


our hearts, he is also seeking to incite us to prayer by the 
invitations to pray with which the pages of scripture are 
sprinkled. He desires, as our Father, that we come into filial 
relation with him; that we cry to him in the spirit of adoption; 
that we open our hearts to him; and that we tarry long in his 
company. Until he can get the best into us, and get the best 
out of us by our prayers, he cannot be satisfied. 


With strong insistence we are being told what is needed today 
is a great prayer-drive, a mighty prayer-thrust against the 
enemies of Christ. That such a movement may have its value 
is not to be denied. But what is still more urgently demanded 
is steady, persevering prayer-push, inspired by the belief that 
prayer is always answered by a direct outflow of saving in- 
fluence; that when it is offered something always happens; 
that to pray is to set loose a new force which begins to work 
at once; and that although it may take God a long time to 
bring about the desired result, things are being done in the 
unseen in answer to prayer which, by and by, will be made 
openly manifest in the seen, that all may behold and wonder. 


When you are discouraged because of the absence of visible re- 
sults, it is well to remember that no true prayer ever falls to 
the ground; and that every blow directed by it against the 
strongholds of sin loosens something, and by and by an open- 
ing may be made in the solid wall of opposition through which 
the legions of the cross will pour to victory. 


Perseverance in prayer is therefore needed just as much as 
perseverance in any other kind of moral endeavor. We are 
to “pray without ceasing,” because every prayer tells, and the 
thing we labor for may be lost if prayer be given up. How 
often it may have happened we know not, that we have ceased 
to pray when another ounce of pressure would have tipped the 
scales. 


And furthermore, we are to continue in prayer—not “until 
God shall hear,” as a recent world-wide call to intercession 
wrongly puts it, but—because he does hear, and every prayer 
meets with an instant response in his infinite heart and is 
answered to his utmost. 


15 





III. Prayer as a Way in Which God 
Fulfills Himself 


le teres is one of the forces by which God is seeking to 
carry to fruition his eternal purpose of redemption, in the es- 
tablishment among men of a new social order, which on its 
human side is a democracy—the brotherhood of man; and on 
its divine side a theocracy—the kingdom of God. Christianity 
is a movement possessing creative power; it professes to be 
able to make all things new, and in this work of world renewal 
one of the creative forces upon which it depends is prayer. 
Without prayer it will fail utterly in the accomplishment of its 
ultimate end. 


GOD’S PLAN CERTAIN’ That the redemptive purpose of 

OF FULFILMENT God will ultimately be carried out 

is one of the fundamental truths 

upon which prayer must rest. If we are not sure of God, if 

we are not sure of his power to solve the problems of life and 
of the world, faith will falter and prayer will cease. 


The reason why faith ever wavers is because we do not see 
far enough. If we saw what God sees we would abound in 
hope. Where we see the acorn he sees the oak, where we see 
the process he sees the finished product, where we see the 
beginning he sees the end. 


In a notable utterance the prophet Isaiah represents Jehovah 
as having the walls of Jerusalem continually before him when 
as yet the city was a heap of ruins (Is. 49:16). Where others 
saw only ruins he saw the walls of a city rebuilt. And today, 
where others see a world in ruins, those who have received the 
divine anointing see “a new earth wherein dwelleth righteous- 


ness.”’ 


THE WORLD ISNOTGO- Sin cannot always triumph; hate 
ING TO DESTRUCTION Cannot always endure; selfishness 
cannot always prosper. Despite 
many checks, the march of events is forward, and every nation 
that is not going God’s way will be halted and turned back. 


ity 


THE PLACE OF PRAYER IN 


Christ, the world’s Redeemer, has lodged in the heart of the 
world a power which contains the potency and promise of its 
ultimate redemption. His cross is.no failure, but is still, as it 
always has been and ever shall be, “the power of God unto 
salvation to every one that believeth.” 


And just as its power has been seen in the transformation of 
individual lives, so shall it be seen in the transformation of the 
common life of man. When that end is reached the perfect 
expression of himself which God found in one life will be 
found in the whole life of humanity. With such a prospect be- 
fore us we do not pray uncertainly, as those who beat the air, 
for we pray for that which is surely coming, and by our praying 
help to bring it. 


NEED FOR PATIENCE AS in other days, so today many 
IN PRAYER are seeking a short cut to the mil- 
lennium. They are wondering why 
- the Almighty does not smite to the dust all who oppose his 
rule. They forget that God cannot force men to be good. 
Were he to overpower the free will of man he would over-_ 
turn the whole order of things upon which his moral goy- 
ernment rests; and would be following the course of those 
scourges of humanity who make of the world a wilderness 
and call it peace; and in doing this he would be acknowl- 
edging the present moral method of redemption to be a 
stupendous failure. 


If God has to work and wait patiently for moral results, so 
have we. Prayer, though powerful beyond our utmost imagin- 
ings, is not irresistible within the moral sphere. It is not only 
a psychic and mental force, it is preeminently a moral force, 
and, like all other forms of moral force, it is suasive in its 
influence. It puts on men legitimate moral pressure, and 
leaves them free. 


INTELLIGENT PRAYER To pray ictelligently for success in 
AND GOD’S METHODS 2ny work of human uplift is there- 

fore to pray for the vanquishment 
of evil and the enthronement of righteousness by moral means. 
Dr. W. E. Orchard is justified in saying, “Civilization is wrong; 
the social system is wrong to its very depths. There is no 
hope in the man of today, there is only hope in God. What 
we want today is nothing less than the conversion of the world, 
a radical change in the heart of man.” 


18 


GOD’S PLAN OF WORLD CONQUEST 


Nothing short of this will suffice. The world needs more than 
reform; it needs regeneration. It must be born again before 
it can enter the kingdom of promise; and those who in their 
praying would meet the world at its place of deepest need will 
not rest content with its improvement, but will be satisfied 
only with its full redemption. 


THE NECESSITY OF To carry out God’s plan of world 
PRAYER PLUS— conquest we must make use of all 
the means which he has appointed. 
Along with prayer there must be the preaching of the word, 
the one being directed to God, the other to man. To dispense 
with either would be like a bird trying to fly with one wing. It 
is utterly futile to pray for the conversion of the world if we 
are not at the same time endeavoring to make known the 
gospel of Christ, which is the divinely appointed means of 
world conquest. To proclaim the immutable law of righteous- 
ness as set forth in the sermon on the mount is not enough. 
That must be enforced and made effective by connecting it 
with what was done on the mount called Calvary. A crossless 
religion is a religion void of power, and no amount of praying 
will avail if the circuit be broken between the law and the 
gospel. 


MAKING NEW Many of the things for which we 
ADJUSTMENTS contended in the past will, in these 
new days, appear poor and paltry. 
The essential things in religion will alone be valued. Religion 
will be tested by its practical effects, and that only which can 
be found to be profitable will endure. One of the things by 
which the religion of the future will be marked will be a 
heightened sense of the value of prayer. 


God was made very real to many in the days of storm and 
stress. Out of the depths men cried unto him, and he came to 
them. They met him face to face. Their intercourse with 
him may not always have been conventional and dignified, but 
it was sincere. Nor readily will they forget how they were 
forced to fall back upon him when all other help failed them, 
and that he brought them relief in the hour of their sore 
distress. 


Family altars will be rebuilt, and the smouldering fires hid 
among the cold gray ashes of many a church altar will be 
fanned into a flame. There will be a revival of prayer, which 
may take on some unexpected forms. New adjustments will 
have to be made. For the new wine we will have to provide 


19 


THE PLACE OF PRAYER IN 


new wine-skins. Prayer-thought will change. The practice 
of prayer will be modified, but prayer itself will increase in 
volume and in power, and will be a more potent factor than it 
ever has been in the spread of the kingdom. 


UNITED PRAYER The men at the front learned the 
lesson of union. They saw that 
military operations failed of the highest success until there 
was unity of action and the separate fingers became a closed 
fist which dealt effective blows. This lesson of unity, which will 
be certain to have its application to religious work, will have a 
direct bearing on prayer. Those who have fought together will 
pray together. They will shame us out of our un-Christian 
separateness and will make short work of our dividing ecclesi- 
astical fences; and by instituting prayer leagues of various 
kinds will bind into one fellowship of spiritual service all the 
followers of Christ throughout the world. 


In his first prayer, called ‘“‘The Lord’s Prayer,” the Master 
taught his deciples to pray for the coming of the kingdom. 
In his farewell prayer, which may be called his brotherly prayer 
of intercession, he told them how the kingdom is to come. He 
showed that it is to come by the union of his people. He prayed 
that they might all be one as he and the Father are one, in 
order that by showing a united front the world might believe 
in him as the one whom the Father had sent. Whatever may 
have been gained in the past by church divisions in the way of 
giving emphasis to the neglected truths, nothing can be more 
evident than that the present-day movement of the Spirit of 
God is toward union; and those who are helping to keep the 
barriers up may well consider whether they may not be stand- 
ing in the Spirit’s way. 


THE URGENCY OF That the urgency of the hour is 
THE PRESENT HOUR great is universally felt. Fields are 
whitening to the harvest. It is not 
that new doors are opening—the whole world is an open door. 
If before the outbreak of the war John R. Mott was warranted 
in declaring we had come to the greatest crisis in the world’s 
history with regard to missions, what is to be said of the world 
situation of today? Perhaps never before were so many souls 
approachable, impressionable, and plastic to the touch of 
spiritual influence. Things are in the crucible, and are ready 
to take the shape of the mold into which they are poured. 
Before long they will cool and harden. Now is the time of 
opportunity, the time of destiny. 


20 


GOD’S PLAN OF WORLD CONQUEST 


How to meet this situation is the question. Various sug- 
gestions are being offered, but one thing is certain, it cannot 
be met without prayer, nor can it be met by giving to prayer 
a secondary place. The first thing we are called upon to do 
is not to organize and mobilize our forces, important as that 
is, but to pray. “The harvest indeed is plenteous, but the 
laborers are few; pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest 
that he would send forth laborers into his harvest” (Luke 
10:2). Prayer will bring missionary recruits; it will bring 
money into the treasury; it will bring everything we need for 
the finishing of the work that is given the church to do. 


BUILDING UP OUR It was a happy thought, born, 
SPIRITUAL RESOURCES without doubt, of the Spirit of 
God. that led the directors of the 
Joint Centenary of the Methodist Episcopal Church to put the 
direction of the first work of their program in the hands of a 
joint committee “for the development of spiritual resources,” 
which has as its goal the enlistment of thousands of inter- 
cessors. That certainly is an instance of putting the emphasis 
at the right place, for the development of spiritual resources 
will naturally and necessarily bring with it the development 
of resources of all other kinds. Any church that is true to 
this ideal will have the opportunity of proving to the world 
anew that God honors his people in the measure in which they 
lean upon his everlasting arm and put their dependence upon 
spiritual forces. 


WHAT DOES CHRIST The writer of the Epistle to the 

EXPECT OF US$? Hebrews says that Christ, “when 

he had offered one sacrifice for sins 

forever, sat down on the right hand of God, henceforth expect- 

ing till his enemies be made the footstool of his feet”? (10:12, 

13). Upon what is the expectation of Christ regarding the sub- 

jugation of his enemies based if not upon the fidelity of his 

people? He has made the success of his kingdom dependent 

upon them. If they fail him things will go backward, if they 
are true to him they will go forward. 


But let us beware of being enmeshed in a figure of speech. 
The Christ who is seated at the right hand of the Father is the 
Christ who says to everyone who goes forth to carry out his 
great commission: “Lo I am with you always, even unto the 
end of the age” (Matt. 28:20.). 


The church needs a larger Christ; or, if you will, a larger con- 
ception of Christ; it needs a Christ who can be in heaven and 


21 


GOD’S PLAN OF WORLD CONQUEST 


on earth at the same time; a Christ who is interceding for his 
people above and “‘working with them” here. Those who think 
of him as an absentee sometimes wonder whether these days 
of upheaval and change may not presage some cataclysmic 
event connected with his second advent. What his program 
will be in the future may be very different from what we antici- 
pate, but one thing is certain: He is now with us, and is going 
forth “conquering and to conquer,” as John beheld him in his 
apocalyptic vision. He is surely coming in the sense at least 
that he is coming to his own—coming “‘in his kingdom.” 


We have not exhausted our resources in Christ. His name 
is Wonderful, and he has many surprises for us in the future. 
In such an hour as we think not there may be a sudden out- 
bursting of his glory. All power belongs to him; all our 
hopes hang upon him; the world’s need of him was never 
greater. The most outstanding fact of the present is the 
fact of his presence. The future cannot bring him nearer; 
all that it can do is to give us a fuller revelation of his pres- 
ence, a greater manifestation of his power, a brighter out- 
shining of his glory. 


And as we take up the prayer with which the sacred canon 
closes, “Come, Lord Jesus,” if we give to it its present-day 
significance what we will pray for will be the epiphany of our 
unseen Lord who is ever with us—the Head and Leader of his 
church, the unacknowledged King of the ages—and the 
answer to that prayer will be at once the fulfilment of human 
hope, and the fulfilment of the redemptive purpose of God. 








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